Author Topic: Failure Was the Key to My Success - Jon Oringer (Read 34106 times)

Shelma1 · « **Reply #25 on:** April 09, 2015, 15:09 »

Quote from: stockastic on April 09, 2015, 14:34

Quote from: ultimagaina on April 09, 2015, 14:17
Quote from: stockastic on April 09, 2015, 14:02

That's why I said "capable". Yes, anyone can now record a track and offer it on the web. "Independent" doesn't necessarily mean "great".

Exactly, but exactly the same goes for the photographers.

Snapping a good photo, now and then, doesn't make you an artists or even a good photographer. But a lot of times this is exactly what some customers want.
The competition among photographers has increased a lot since the explosion smartphones and all those continuous DSLR improvements.
With so many decent photos produced every day, how can you not expect the price of the photo to go down?

Simple economics.

Embrace the trend, adapt to it, or sink slowly.

Sometimes, what people really want is just cheap cr@p. But not always. Go into a big shipping mall, and you'll find one or two "Everything's A Dollar" stores. In microstock, a couple of middlemen got control of the channel and imposed a simplistic one-size-fits-all business model on the entire market. It's as if "Everything's A Dollar" bought the Mall of America and evicted everyone else.

Well, not precisely. If they'd bought up an existing library of images and priced them all the same, maybe. But what they did was set one price for images, and then the contributors decided to submit ever-higher-quality images as a way to outsell the competition. That raised the bar on quality, until now the bar is so high there's no discernible difference between the quality of certain images in microstock and some in macrostock.

ultimagina · « **Reply #26 on:** April 09, 2015, 15:17 »

Quote from: Shelma1 on April 09, 2015, 15:09

Well, not precisely. If they'd bought up an existing library of images and priced them all the same, maybe. But what they did was set one price for images, and then the contributors decided to submit ever-higher-quality images as a way to outsell the competition. That raised the bar on quality, until now the bar is so high there's no discernible difference between the quality of certain images in microstock and some in macrostock.

Exactly!
Even more: there is not discernible difference between what Peter Lik sells for many thousands of dollars as "fine art" and some of the microstock photos (except that we can really consider some of the microstock photos better than Lik's)

Nobody stops those talented microstockers to go the Lik's way, if they don't like the "middle man"

etudiante_rapide · « **Reply #27 on:** April 09, 2015, 15:26 »

pixelbytes...

i think you're right... but both bush and nixon can be overlapped with oringer

the lifting of the bar and dollar store argument is right on too.
the bar has been lifted so high that there is actually very good images , perharps too good work on micro ss going for less than a dollar. at least the dollar shop never goes below a dollar.
and most of the stuff you find in the everything for dollar shops are pretty much junk...
not so for ss work . esp when you consider how atilla and breed expect the new work to be absolute .

problem is also no one else is big enough to take on ss and give good images the higher price.
there is offset and stocksy and canva but i really don't think they are cracking the market that much
to the point where oringer would shift gear into getting more money for all of us.

Lizard · « **Reply #28 on:** April 09, 2015, 16:01 »

Nice outfit on that photo

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #29 on:** April 09, 2015, 16:39 »

Quote from: ultimagaina on April 09, 2015, 15:17

Nobody stops those talented microstockers to go the Lik's way, if they don't like the "middle man"

Nobody except themselves. To be Lik I would guess you need enormous self-confidence, marketing skills, business acumen, energy and, no doubt, a fair amount of luck. Not many have that mix.

Hobostocker · « **Reply #30 on:** April 10, 2015, 03:20 »

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on April 09, 2015, 16:39

Nobody except themselves. To be Lik I would guess you need enormous self-confidence, marketing skills, business acumen, energy and, no doubt, a fair amount of luck. Not many have that mix.

in the case of Peter Lik it was all about location and luck ... after selling postcards he got the foot in the door of the art world and had two galleries in australia but he never got rich with it, he sold them and opened in the US and it was a fiasco as well ... finally in despair he claimed he had to "go big or go home" and opened in a prime location in Hawaii and it was a success, from this "mother shop" in Hawaii he got the banks lending him a sh-itload of money to open in Vegas and the rest is history.

Hobostocker · « **Reply #31 on:** April 10, 2015, 03:29 »

Quote from: Shelma1 on April 09, 2015, 15:09

Well, not precisely. If they'd bought up an existing library of images and priced them all the same, maybe. But what they did was set one price for images, and then the contributors decided to submit ever-higher-quality images as a way to outsell the competition. That raised the bar on quality, until now the bar is so high there's no discernible difference between the quality of certain images in microstock and some in macrostock.

but the next step is that only contributors with big portfolios will stay afloat and anyone else sooner or later will give up ...

as for people doing stock in the third world, let me remind you that the so called third world is no longer as cheap as 5-10 yrs ago, if Oringer is betting on chinese/indian/filipino stockers willing to work for a pittance he's in for a bad surprise ...

Hobostocker · « **Reply #32 on:** April 10, 2015, 03:36 »

Quote from: ultimagaina on April 09, 2015, 14:17

Quote from: stockastic on April 09, 2015, 14:02

That's why I said "capable". Yes, anyone can now record a track and offer it on the web. "Independent" doesn't necessarily mean "great".

Exactly, but exactly the same goes for the photographers.

Snapping a good photo, now and then, doesn't make you an artists or even a good photographer. But a lot of times this is exactly what some customers want.
The competition among photographers has increased a lot since the explosion smartphones and all those continuous DSLR improvements.
With so many decent photos produced every day, how can you not expect the price of the photo to go down?

Simple economics.

Embrace the trend, adapt to it, or sink slowly.

and by simple economics the only way to stay in the stock business is to own a large portfolio, precisely because it's oversaturated and you can't compete too much on quality since the fees are miserable.

the immediate consequence of this is that newbies will give up since there's no return on investment, and sooner of later this will be acknowledged by the agencies.

agencies had a free lunch so far but it won't last forever.
lots of people are leaving Alamy for lack of sales, others gave up with second and third tier micro agencies, this is just the beginning and the final outcome is obvious, just give it some time ...

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #33 on:** April 10, 2015, 03:41 »

Quote from: Hobostocker on April 10, 2015, 03:20

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on April 09, 2015, 16:39
Nobody except themselves. To be Lik I would guess you need enormous self-confidence, marketing skills, business acumen, energy and, no doubt, a fair amount of luck. Not many have that mix.

in the case of Peter Lik it was all about location and luck ... after selling postcards he got the foot in the door of the art world and had two galleries in australia but he never got rich with it, he sold them and opened in the US and it was a fiasco as well ... finally in despair he claimed he had to "go big or go home" and opened in a prime location in Hawaii and it was a success, from this "mother shop" in Hawaii he got the banks lending him a sh-itload of money to open in Vegas and the rest is history.

Sounds like a fair amount of business acumen, energy and self-confidence in that history - plus a willingness to gamble everything on a single throw of the dice. It reminds me a bit of the Marquis of Montrose's poem "he either fears his fate too much, or his desserts are small, that puts it not unto the touch to win or lose it all". Of course, he wrote that before they chopped his head off and stuck it on a spike in Edinburgh for the next 11 years (which might serve as a practical warning against being over-ambitious).

ultimagina · « **Reply #34 on:** April 10, 2015, 07:12 »

Quote from: Hobostocker on April 10, 2015, 03:36

Quote from: ultimagaina on April 09, 2015, 14:17
Quote from: stockastic on April 09, 2015, 14:02

That's why I said "capable". Yes, anyone can now record a track and offer it on the web. "Independent" doesn't necessarily mean "great".

Exactly, but exactly the same goes for the photographers.

Snapping a good photo, now and then, doesn't make you an artists or even a good photographer. But a lot of times this is exactly what some customers want.
The competition among photographers has increased a lot since the explosion smartphones and all those continuous DSLR improvements.
With so many decent photos produced every day, how can you not expect the price of the photo to go down?

Simple economics.

Embrace the trend, adapt to it, or sink slowly.

and by simple economics the only way to stay in the stock business is to own a large portfolio, precisely because it's oversaturated and you can't compete too much on quality since the fees are miserable.

the immediate consequence of this is that newbies will give up since there's no return on investment, and sooner of later this will be acknowledged by the agencies.

agencies had a free lunch so far but it won't last forever.
lots of people are leaving Alamy for lack of sales, others gave up with second and third tier micro agencies, this is just the beginning and the final outcome is obvious, just give it some time ...

I am fairly sure that you can still very well compete on quality. You have no proof that customers stopped looking for the best. Quite the opposite.

Besides, if your doom and gloom scenario will ever become reality and 80% of the contributors will give-up, then the agencies will adapt in order to retain those unsatisfied contributors.

Or, if not, another smart entrepreneur will setup a new agency and he will be successfully working with those 80% of formerly disgruntled "unemployed" contributors.

So, here you are, you will have an opportunity to become the next Oringer, provided you have the mix mentioned by Baldricks Trousers

Maybe I'll even join your agency

Good luck!

stockastic · « **Reply #35 on:** April 10, 2015, 16:13 »

Quote from: Shelma1 on April 09, 2015, 15:09

Quote from: stockastic on April 09, 2015, 14:34
Quote from: ultimagaina on April 09, 2015, 14:17
Quote from: stockastic on April 09, 2015, 14:02

That's why I said "capable". Yes, anyone can now record a track and offer it on the web. "Independent" doesn't necessarily mean "great".

Exactly, but exactly the same goes for the photographers.

Snapping a good photo, now and then, doesn't make you an artists or even a good photographer. But a lot of times this is exactly what some customers want.
The competition among photographers has increased a lot since the explosion smartphones and all those continuous DSLR improvements.
With so many decent photos produced every day, how can you not expect the price of the photo to go down?

Simple economics.

Embrace the trend, adapt to it, or sink slowly.

Sometimes, what people really want is just cheap cr@p. But not always. Go into a big shipping mall, and you'll find one or two "Everything's A Dollar" stores. In microstock, a couple of middlemen got control of the channel and imposed a simplistic one-size-fits-all business model on the entire market. It's as if "Everything's A Dollar" bought the Mall of America and evicted everyone else.

Well, not precisely. If they'd bought up an existing library of images and priced them all the same, maybe. But what they did was set one price for images, and then the contributors decided to submit ever-higher-quality images as a way to outsell the competition. That raised the bar on quality, until now the bar is so high there's no discernible difference between the quality of certain images in microstock and some in macrostock.

I think when the "dollar" stores were new, you might have found bargains in them. Today, I'm pretty sure that all the products in those stores were made to sell at that price.

etudiante_rapide · « **Reply #36 on:** April 11, 2015, 14:36 »

Quote from: Hobostocker on April 10, 2015, 03:29

as for people doing stock in the third world, let me remind you that the so called third world is no longer as cheap as 5-10 yrs ago, if Oringer is betting on chinese/indian/filipino stockers willing to work for a pittance he's in for a bad surprise ...

not just them... recently i mentioned ss to arabic and latin ppl
and was told after i mentioned we earn 30 cts to ... xx $
they told me in their language the equivalence of - if it was me, i would say to them
what the f*** may as well go f*** yourself.

gillian vann · « **Reply #37 on:** April 11, 2015, 19:22 »

Quote from: Shelma1 on April 08, 2015, 09:57

"I never imagined that Shutterstock would provide people in emerging economies with the opportunity to earn a decent living."

gee, the guy is a humanitarian and we've been bagging him, instead of giving him a Nobel Prize. silly us.

shudderstok · « **Reply #38 on:** April 11, 2015, 19:34 »

as for people doing stock in the third world, let me remind you that the so called third world is no longer as cheap as 5-10 yrs ago, if Oringer is betting on chinese/indian/filipino stockers willing to work for a pittance he's in for a bad surprise ...
[/quote]

you really think so? he already has lots of western people supporting him and praising SS and the pittance they pay, so if people in the west do this, why would someone from a third world country not do it?

KnowYourOnions · « **Reply #39 on:** April 12, 2015, 05:17 »

Meanwhile in India...

India's poor have to open a bank account so they can receive subsidies, but are sometimes asked to pay a bribe when they try.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/indias-push-for-banks-for-all-leaves-some-still-outside-1428528601?mod=e2fb

etudiante_rapide · « **Reply #40 on:** April 12, 2015, 11:38 »

Quote from: KnowYourOnions on April 12, 2015, 05:17

Meanwhile in India...

India's poor have to open a bank account so they can receive subsidies, but are sometimes asked to pay a bribe when they try.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/indias-push-for-banks-for-all-leaves-some-still-outside-1428528601?mod=e2fb

india is like all colonies (brazil, baptista cuba, marcos philipines,etc) where there is a tiny portion of society who is allowed to make money more so to remain filthy rich literally while the rest majority is to remain dogs. much in the same way as china used to be where the majority eat sh*t while the ppl in the forbidden city live comfy and expect the whole country to fight for the emperor.
india is the same, where the rajas live down their brown nosing (that came from here when the raja brown nosed the british, to collect lagaan from the poor farmer and untouchables).
today is no different, these rich filth continue to rule the banks,etc. brazil is the same which came from their colonials , locals appointed by portugal to be the lords of the nation while the rest suffer like dogs for a jobs .
they are not considered criminals. eg marco , baptista, now live comfy somewhere in US or other colonial countries . to brown nose the white colonials is not a crime , you are more likely to be welcome to US ,etc when the time comes for the country to kick you out like baptista cuba.

Tryingmybest · « **Reply #41 on:** April 12, 2015, 12:55 »

Time to increase our pay, Mr. Oringer.

etudiante_rapide · « **Reply #42 on:** April 12, 2015, 15:46 »

Quote from: Striving on April 12, 2015, 12:55

Time to increase our pay, Mr. Oringer.

LMAO as if he comes here to read this. maybe you go tweet his own site he might read it
really, i don`t expect any raise any more than you get a raise watching porn

i would say at least let the total monthly earning be increased across the board
with SOD of those $28 to $120 per single earning
so we still end up making better than having 1000 dls of 30 cts per month.
as someone alteady started a new thread, even that new good thing seem to have disappeared lately...

dpimborough · « **Reply #43 on:** April 12, 2015, 16:37 »

Now there is an idea why not send requests to Jon Oringer's twitter account requesting a raise?

If enough people do that maybe he'll get off his plinth long enough to do it

Not aggressive but just point it out to him ~ a little naming and shaming (its fashionable

)

etudiante_rapide · « **Reply #44 on:** April 12, 2015, 18:23 »

Quote from: Teddy the Cat on April 12, 2015, 16:37

Now there is an idea why not send requests to Jon Oringer's twitter account requesting a raise?

currently he has 2,665 tweets 646 following
and none of the tweets have anything to do with ss... just lots of mush.
so many he does need a boost off his plinth like you say... tho i don[t even know what they mean but it sounds good

Hobostocker · « **Reply #45 on:** April 13, 2015, 00:57 »

they will raise our fees only when they will get a substantial benefit from it, like they do with the Offset collection.

dpimborough · « **Reply #46 on:** April 13, 2015, 06:39 »

Quote from: etudiante_rapide on April 12, 2015, 18:23

Quote from: Teddy the Cat on April 12, 2015, 16:37
Now there is an idea why not send requests to Jon Oringer's twitter account requesting a raise?

currently he has 2,665 tweets 646 following
and none of the tweets have anything to do with ss... just lots of mush.
so many he does need a boost off his plinth like you say... tho i don[t even know what they mean but it sounds good

Plinth ~ a pedestal for a statue or what not

KnowYourOnions · « **Reply #47 on:** April 14, 2015, 17:37 »

Meanwhile in Spain...

They claim they are treated like slaves by agencies who hire them to produce the salads and vegetables that end up on supermarket shelves in Britain.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3039046/Read-never-buy-bag-supermarket-salad-farmworkers-treated-like-slaves-live-filthy-conditions-major-stores-promise-inquiry.html

Tryingmybest · « **Reply #48 on:** April 16, 2015, 11:21 »

Quote from: etudiante_rapide on April 12, 2015, 15:46

Quote from: Striving on April 12, 2015, 12:55
Time to increase our pay, Mr. Oringer.

LMAO as if he comes here to read this. maybe you go tweet his own site he might read it
really, i don`t expect any raise any more than you get a raise watching porn
i would say at least let the total monthly earning be increased across the board
with SOD of those $28 to $120 per single earning
so we still end up making better than having 1000 dls of 30 cts per month.
as someone alteady started a new thread, even that new good thing seem to have disappeared lately...

Truthfully, I don't watch porn nor do I expect the lords of microstock to care about those of us who bring them wealth. I only hope to inspire my fellow artists to never be satisfied until we all can make an equal profit from our work. Addressing him was symbolic as his name is now symbolic with the most wealthy in our industry. Peace.

Tryingmybest · « **Reply #49 on:** April 16, 2015, 11:23 »

Quote from: Teddy the Cat on April 12, 2015, 16:37

Now there is an idea why not send requests to Jon Oringer's twitter account requesting a raise?

If enough people do that maybe he'll get off his plinth long enough to do it

Not aggressive but just point it out to him ~ a little naming and shaming (its fashionable )

Just make sure you keep anonymous. Those with power tend to abuse it when exposed to their failures by those who work for them.

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Author Topic: Failure Was the Key to My Success - Jon Oringer (Read 34106 times)

Shelma1

ultimagina

etudiante_rapide

Lizard

BaldricksTrousers

Hobostocker

Hobostocker

Hobostocker

BaldricksTrousers

ultimagina

stockastic

etudiante_rapide

gillian vann

shudderstok

KnowYourOnions

etudiante_rapide

Tryingmybest

etudiante_rapide

dpimborough

etudiante_rapide

Hobostocker

dpimborough

KnowYourOnions

Tryingmybest

Tryingmybest

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